Benjamin W. Martin (1817-1876) was a cotton broker and merchant in Warren, Bradley County, Arkansas. He was born in Pennsboro, Virginia, on August 24, 1817, and came to Arkansas sometime in the 1840s. On May 12, 1847, Martin married Martha Elizabeth Bond of Monticello, Drew County, Arkansas, and they made their home in Warren after an extended honeymoon trip to Philadelphia, New York, and Boston. During this trip both Benjamin and Martha kept diaries recording their experiences, and these diaries have been placed in Series 2 of this collection. The Martins had ten children, nine of whom survived infancy: Henry Gaines Martin, Mary Clay Martin, Virginia (Jennie) Martin, Martha Washington Martin, Elizabeth (Lizzie) Martin, James Lou Martin, Benjamin W. Martin, Jr., John Wilson Martin, and Gilbert H. Martin. All four daughters were sent to school at Shelbyville, Kentucky, in the 1870s, and much of the collection's correspondence from this time consists of the Martin girls' letters home and to their friends. Virginia Martin also kept a diary during her stay in Kentucky, which has been placed in Series 2. Benjamin Martin's health began to fail in 1875, and he travelled to Hot Springs several times for treatment. Nine of the letters, dated from November 1875 to February 1876, were written by Benjamin prior to his death at Hot Springs of Bright's disease on February 11, 1876.

Benjamin's youngest son, Gilbert H. Martin, married May Prigmore in 1891. May was the daughter of George W. Prigmore, a Union Army captain from Illinois who settled in Pine Bluff following the Civil War, and Annie Elizabeth Elliott. One of the commonplace books in Series 2 was kept by Annie during the Civil War when she was a schoolgirl in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Many of the photographs in Series 6 are of the Gilbert Martin family.